Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): On today's Telling the Truth program, Stuart Briscoe brings a message called "We're Born Again to Live Anew." Today's culture is a revolving door of ever-shifting views and beliefs. That's why it's so important to test new ideas against the timeless truth of scripture. It's the best defense against the world's confusion.

We want to help ground you in the foundations of your faith by sending you Stuart Briscoe's six-message series on the book of Second Peter, "Six Things We Must Never Forget." This series will anchor you in six time-tested truths from God's word so you can stand strong in your beliefs as you remember the deep spiritual truths that are foundational to your faith.

The "Six Things We Must Never Forget" series is our thanks for your gift to help keep Telling the Truth going strong, sharing life-giving teaching from Stuart and Jill with more people all over the world. So request your copy when you give today and get help staying grounded in truth in today's shifting culture.

Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's Stuart with his message for today, "We're Born Again to Live Anew."

Stuart Briscoe: Peter said, "So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body because I know that I will soon put it aside as our Lord Jesus has made clear to me. And I will make every effort to see that after my departure, you will always be able to remember these things."

Now Peter is coming to the end of his days and the end of his ministry, obviously. He has one overriding concern, and that is that there are certain things that people are prone to forget. He wants to make absolutely certain that they remember rather than forget these things.

Turn then, if you will, to Chapter 3, verses 1 and 2. "Dear friends," he says, "this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles."

So the emphasis is very clear. In both his letters, he wants to remind people in order that they can recall certain things. Notice, conversely, that in verse 9 of the first chapter, speaking of all the things he's going to teach, he says this, "If anyone does not have these things, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins." So clearly the emphasis is on remembering the things we must not forget.

The general theme of this opening passage of Peter's letter can be summarized in this statement: We're born again to live anew. We're born again to live anew. And the emphasis that Peter is going to bring out here is this: it is one thing to come to faith; it is an entirely different thing to progress in that faith.

I suppose that he was concerned about something that we need to be concerned about in our culture at the present time, and it is this: there is no shortage of people who profess faith, but their behavior is strangely dichotomized from their faith. There seems to be a great commitment to orthodoxy very often, but little interest in orthopraxy.

There is not infrequently an interest in going to church to hear about the stuff you can hear in church and to enjoy the things that are put on in church, but there's not necessarily a spilling over into what happens outside of church. Somebody has pointed out that one of the strange anomalies about American culture is that on a Sunday morning, a very, very high percentage of Americans are found in church.

But when you look at the way American culture operates between Sundays, there's no discernable difference between it and other cultures where there is not the same church attendance. Many people have asked the question, "Why is this?" and the answer is simply because people are very often concentrating on the fact they were born again without necessarily recognizing that the whole point of being born again is that you might live anew.

And so to aid us in recognizing this as the thrust of Peter's concern here, let me remind you of three things that we must not forget. Number one: don't ever forget what you have received. Don't ever forget what you have received. Now, let me read to you the opening verses here.

"Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ have received a faith as precious as ours." Don't ever forget you have received a precious faith. That's the first thing. Don't ever forget that you have received a precious faith.

When Peter says that we have received a precious faith, he tells us that we have received this precious faith through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. Now, notice the unique way in which Jesus is addressed by Peter here. He is addressed quite specifically as our God and Savior.

There are some people who say the Bible makes no explicit statements or explicit claims that Jesus is God. Well, they need to look at this expression here. Notice that our God has demonstrated himself in a remarkable way. Our God has chosen to be our Savior. Our God has chosen to be our Savior. Now, that bears meditating upon.

You see, there are lots of ways of looking at God. You can look at God as being the "man upstairs," or you can look at God as being the great Creator, or you can look at God as being the unmoved mover, or you can look at God as being the first cause.

You can look at God in a wide variety of ways, but surely the par excellence way of looking at God is to say that our God, the Creator and Upholder of all things, incredibly became our Savior in the person of Jesus Christ. And because he is our God and Savior, it is possible for us to enter into an experience of salvation from all the things that hinder and mar and ruin our lives.

Peter goes a step further and he says this faith that we have received, this experience of salvation through faith that is ours, is predicated upon the righteousness of our God and Savior. When he says the righteousness of our God and Savior here, he is talking about the moral and ethical uprightness of our God and Savior.

It is his rightness, his fairness, his justice. It is out of all this that God moved to deal with a frail, fallen, fallible human race. Now don't ever forget it. It is because God chose to be Savior in Jesus, and it is out of his fundamental righteousness that salvation has been made available to us.

It is not predicated on what good people we are; it is predicated on what a righteous God he is, and don't ever forget it. That is the fundamental, foundational thing that Peter talks about. We are not to forget that we have received a precious faith. Secondly, we are not to forget that we have received grace and peace.

Now notice the second verse: "Grace and peace be yours in abundance through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord." Now when Peter starts his letter out talking about grace and peace, he is simply doing what was normative in a formal introduction to a letter in the first century in the Middle East.

But you'll notice that he is taking the Hebrew idea of peace and the Greek idea of grace to an extreme that is not normative in a formal letter introduction. He's talking about grace and peace in abundance through knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord. So what have we received?

In our knowledge of Christ, that is our experimental, experiential knowledge of Christ, we receive an abundance of grace and an abundance of peace. That's something we've received. Don't ever forget it. Don't ever, ever forget what you have received in Christ.

What does it mean that I have received an abundance of grace? It means that I have received an abundance of what God freely offers that is necessary for me to be what he wants me to be. What does it mean that I have received an abundance of peace?

It means that God has moved into the chaos of our world and in the chaos and disorder of my life and has brought a degree of order, a degree of sense, a degree of stability to it. That's the fundamental idea of peace here. But notice I receive this abundance of grace and this abundance of peace through my experience of Christ's lordship in my life.

It is true to say that some people spend a lifetime thanking Jesus for being their Savior but struggling with him being their Lord. Very, very often they want him to give a lavishing of all the benefits that accrue because he is Savior, but they do not want to actually accept the responsibilities of acknowledging his gracious lordship in their lives.

And sometimes, as a result, they lack this sense of abundance of grace and abundance of peace. But Peter says, "Now listen, I want you to remember certain things. When I'm gone, I want you to bear these things in mind. And two of the first things are: you've received a precious faith, and you've received grace and peace."

The second thing is: don't ever forget how to respond to what you have received. Verse 5: "For this very reason..." Notice when the Bible says, "For this very reason," a thinking person would say, "For what very reason?" and they would look for what the reason is. And the reason, of course, is contained in all that has been said so far.

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love." Phew!

Now what he's saying here gives the lie to what many people think about religious experience. A lot of people seem to have gotten the impression that it's a good thing to be born again. Now people get into a big debate about what it means, but the people who say they've been born again look back to it, they speak about it with tremendous enthusiasm, and rightly so.

But the thing that we need to recognize is this: in the same way that you were born to live, in the same way that you were born to live, we were born again to live anew. And the problem that we have very, very often is simply this: that people are making claims to be born again without showing the evidence through living anew.

So it is perfectly possible to have a country in which a high percentage of the people claim to be born again, whereas in actual fact, the morality of that country is held up to ridicule in the whole of the world. Now how can that be?

And the answer is: if we simply are satisfied with being born again without taking careful note of what Peter says here, add to your faith goodness, and to goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control, and to self-control perseverance, and to perseverance brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love.

If we don't care two hoots about all that kind of stuff and simply go around talking about being born again, guess what? We will simply be harking back to something that apparently has no relevance to the way that we live our lives. We keep it in a beautiful little watertight compartment reserved for an hour on Sunday mornings.

No, says Peter, don't ever forget that there is a response to what you have received. Well, what is the response? Well, first of all, the response should be an appreciation of the preciousness of your faith. How do you appreciate the preciousness of your faith?

By constantly reiterating and rehearsing in your own mind the fundamentals of what you believe. That's what we've been talking about so far. But then secondly, by concentrating on the progress of your faith. Now each of these words here would bear at least half an hour's study, but you'll be thrilled to know we're not even going to give them half a minute's study, really. Just walk you through them.

Add to your faith goodness. Now what is this goodness? Well, the term has already appeared earlier relating to the Lord Jesus. It was his goodness that drew us to himself. It was his moral excellence that drew us to himself.

And what Peter is saying here is something we need to hear and we need to absolutely insist on, and it is this: that people of faith are required to translate their faith in Christ into practical, moral, ethical behavior. One of the great problems that we have had is well-publicized failure by those who profess faith when it comes to the area of moral and ethical behavior.

And the cause of Christ and the cause of the church and the cause of the gospel is held up to ridicule, and is it any wonder? If people say that they have come now into a new experience of God, but they live in blatant disobedience of the moral imperatives that God has laid upon us.

No, if we are going to take seriously what it means to be men and women of faith, we add to our faith moral, ethical, spiritual excellence. And that is something that becomes fundamental in the way we conduct our lives. We add to our goodness, or moral excellence as he talks about here, knowledge.

That is practical wisdom. Practical wisdom. One of the reasons that some people are a little nervous about adding to their faith moral excellence is that as they go out into the everyday world, people will call them a "Holy Joe." They'll say, "Oh, you're holier than thou. Who are you to judge me?"

Well, Peter knows how to avoid that claim. He says you add to your goodness, your moral excellence, knowledge, which is practical wisdom. We add to our knowledge, self-control. Now we all know perfectly well that if we're going to live with a high moral and ethical standard, we in and of ourselves cannot do it.

But we've received all things that pertain unto life and godliness, but we also need to be exercising spiritual discipline, self-control. What he's saying here is this: we add to our faith goodness, we add to our goodness knowledge, we add to our knowledge self-control, and self-control is married to perseverance.

How many people at the beginning of January will make a commitment to get the proper exercise, to get the proper diet, to get their weight where it really belongs, to get their cholesterol where it should be? And guess what? By the end of February, all these things are back where they shouldn't be. Why? Because self-control was not married to perseverance.

Let's face it, that if we're just going to be this sort of dry, desiccated, moral, upright person, we're not going to be particularly appealing. That's why Peter says, "And add to all these things brotherly kindness." Add to your faith goodness, add to your goodness knowledge, add to your knowledge self-control, add to your self-control perseverance, add to your perseverance brotherly kindness.

Over all that, begin to experience in increasing measure that which only the Holy Spirit can produce in your life, and that is agape love. You know something? Isn't it a shame that some people start out on their spiritual lives and stop where they started instead of recognizing they were born again to live anew?

Don't ever, ever, ever forget what you've received and don't ever forget how to respond. We respond by appreciating the preciousness of our faith. We respond by concentrating on the progress of our faith, and we respond by validating the proof of our faith.

Look at this remarkable statement in verse 10: "Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure." Let me ask you a question: would you like to make sure that your faith life is not ineffective and unproductive?

Would you like to make sure that you don't find yourself falling flat on your face in moral and spiritual collapse? And would you like to make sure that you enter into heaven with a rich, abundant welcome? I'd be very surprised if any of you would say, "No, I'm not into all that stuff."

I think probably you'd say, "No, that's deep down in my heart what I want." Well then, how do I go about it? And the answer is by making sure that you never, ever forget what you've received and what the ramifications will be.

Guest (Male): In your message today, Stuart, you talked about how we can enter into heaven with a rich and abundant welcome. What's one thing we shouldn't forget in order to make this happen?

Stuart Briscoe: In Second Peter Chapter 1, Peter gives some very, very practical instructions, including the following and you should really read this passage for yourself. He says, "Add to your faith goodness, and to your goodness knowledge, and to knowledge self-control," and then he goes on down the line.

And then he says, "If you do these things, you will never fall and you will receive a rich welcome into the eternal kingdom. You will receive a rich and glorious welcome into the eternal kingdom." Now, what is he saying?

He is saying, "Look, if we want to walk on through life as followers of Jesus, then we're going to have to make every effort to be growing, to be maturing, to be developing, to be adding to our faith all the evidences of grace in our lives."

And he gives us a promise. In fact, it's a two-fold promise. He said, "Number one: you do this, you will not fall. And number two: you will enter into heaven, not by the skin of your teeth, but triumphantly." Whenever I read this, I'm reminded of something I saw as a boy in World War II.

There was a ship of the Royal Navy called HMS Eskimo. And HMS Eskimo was hit by a torpedo and was literally split in two, but the sailors on board, those who survived, managed to bring basically half HMS Eskimo back into port.

And the whole of the town came out to welcome them. Battered and bruised and suffered terribly, they had an abundant entrance. And if we do what Peter is telling us here, we, too, will have an abundant entrance—battered and bruised—into glory.

Guest (Female): Thanks for listening to Telling the Truth today. We're so glad you've joined us, and we pray this message has helped you experience more of the abundant life Jesus promises. We want to share a note from a listener named Linette. She recently wrote in to say, "What joy to hear the excellent biblical teaching from the Briscoes. I am always inspired, encouraged, and challenged by the wonderful teachings. Blessings."

Guest (Male): Today's culture is a revolving door of ever-shifting views and beliefs. That's why it's so important to test new ideas against the timeless truth of scripture. It's the best defense against the world's confusion. We want to help ground you in the foundations of your faith by sending you Stuart Briscoe's six-message series on the book of Second Peter, "Six Things We Must Never Forget."

The "Six Things We Must Never Forget" series is our thanks for your gift to help keep Telling the Truth going strong, sharing life-giving teaching from Stuart and Jill with more people all over the world. So request your copy when you give today and get help staying grounded in truth in today's shifting culture.

Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388 or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. We're so glad you listened today. Come back tomorrow to hear more from Stuart on "Six Things We Must Never Forget." Experience life next time on Telling the Truth.